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Developer Tools · head to head

Garden vs One Identity

Garden logo

Garden

Developer Tools

Kubernetes development and testing automation with shared caching, now owned by Incredibuild

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
One Identity logo

One Identity

Cybersecurity

Quest-owned identity governance, PAM and Active Directory management

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Garden has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Garden incredibuild acquired Garden in November 2024 and the pricing page now redirects to documentation, so there is no public commercial offer and no published roadmap for a team betting a platform on it.; One Identity the portfolio is assembled from separate acquisitions, so components are separately licensed, separately administered and do not present one console, which raises operational cost.
  • They diverge on capability: Garden covers Action graph, One Identity covers Identity Manager.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Garden and One Identity actually diverge.

Attributes where Garden and One Identity differ
AttributeGardenOne Identity
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, KubernetesWeb, Windows, Linux
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Garden

  • Action graph
  • Shared result caching
  • Remote Kubernetes environments
  • In-cluster builds
  • Same config everywhere
  • Hot reload sync
  • Helm and Kustomize support
  • Templating

Only in One Identity

  • Identity Manager
  • Safeguard
  • Active Roles
  • OneLogin
  • Password Manager
  • syslog-ng
  • Starling connectors

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Garden

  • A platform team whose integration test suite takes longer than the coffee break and needs caching to cut the loopnot One Identity
  • An organisation with thirty or more services on Kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates productionnot One Identity
  • Giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environmentnot One Identity
  • Running the identical build and test definition locally and in CI so failures reproduce on a laptopnot One Identity

One Identity

  • An organisation whose authoritative directory will remain on premises Active Directory and needs delegated administration with attribute-level controlnot Garden
  • A government or defence environment requiring privileged session management on a hardened physical appliance rather than a cloud servicenot Garden
  • A manufacturer with SAP and Active Directory needing provisioning governed under one certification processnot Garden
  • An enterprise consolidating Active Directory after an acquisition and needing automated account lifecycle across both forestsnot Garden

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Garden

  • Incredibuild acquired Garden in November 2024 and the pricing page now redirects to documentation, so there is no public commercial offer and no published roadmap for a team betting a platform on it.
  • It is tightly bound to Kubernetes, so teams running on ECS, Nomad, plain VMs or serverless get little from it and would need a different tool entirely.
  • The YAML action graph is a real configuration surface: a large monorepo needs someone to own and maintain Garden config as a first-class artefact, which is a standing platform-engineering cost.
  • Shared remote environments mean every developer needs cluster access and a cost allocation model, so cloud spend rises and namespace sprawl becomes a thing you have to police.
  • Caching correctness depends on declaring dependencies accurately; an under-declared action will serve a stale cached pass and hide a genuine test failure, which is a hard class of bug to notice.

One Identity

  • The portfolio is assembled from separate acquisitions, so components are separately licensed, separately administered and do not present one console, which raises operational cost.
  • Identity Manager implementations are customisation-heavy and commonly run over a year, with the services spend exceeding the licence cost in the first year.
  • Quest has changed private equity ownership more than once since the Dell separation, and buyers should ask directly about product investment commitments before signing a multi-year deal.
  • Product documentation and support sit behind a customer portal, which makes independent evaluation before purchase harder than with vendors that publish openly.
  • The cloud-native and developer experience trails the pure-play identity vendors, so organisations moving decisively to SaaS applications find the on premises heritage becomes a constraint rather than an asset.

Pricing, plan by plan

Garden

Free
  • Garden open sourceFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed CLI
    • Full action graph and caching
    • Self-managed clusters
  • Commercial tier$undefined/year
    • Hosted caching and team features
    • Support and onboarding
    • Pricing no longer published since the Incredibuild acquisition

One Identity

On request
  • Identity Manager$undefined/year
    • Priced per managed identity
    • On premises or hosted
    • Access certification and provisioning
  • Safeguard$undefined/year
    • Priced per privileged user or per appliance
    • Hardened appliance option for session management
    • Licensed separately from Identity Manager
  • Active Roles$undefined/year
    • Priced per managed Active Directory account
    • Delegated administration and automated provisioning
    • Licensed separately

Which should you pick?

Choose Garden if

  • You need action graph.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes.
  • You also want shared result caching.
Garden review

Choose One Identity if

  • You need identity manager.
  • You work on Web, Windows, Linux.
  • You also want safeguard.
One Identity review

Questions people ask

Is Garden or One Identity better?
Neither clearly leads. Garden starts at Free and One Identity at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Garden or One Identity?
Garden has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Garden and On request for One Identity.
Does Garden or One Identity run on more platforms?
Garden runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes. One Identity runs on Web, Windows, Linux.
Can I use Garden for free?
Yes. Garden has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. One Identity starts at On request.
What is Garden best used for?
Garden is most often used for a platform team whose integration test suite takes longer than the coffee break and needs caching to cut the loop, an organisation with thirty or more services on kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates production, giving every developer an ephemeral namespace instead of queuing for one shared staging environment, running the identical build and test definition locally and in ci so failures reproduce on a laptop. Of those, a platform team whose integration test suite takes longer than the coffee break and needs caching to cut the loop and an organisation with thirty or more services on kubernetes where docker-compose no longer approximates production are not what One Identity is typically brought in for.
What can Garden do that One Identity cannot?
Garden covers Action graph, Shared result caching, Remote Kubernetes environments, In-cluster builds. One Identity covers Identity Manager, Safeguard, Active Roles, OneLogin.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Garden: Is Garden still maintained?

The open source project remains on GitHub under Incredibuild ownership, but the commercial pricing page redirects to the docs and there is no public paid offer.

One Identity: Is One Identity the same company as Quest?

Yes. One Identity is Quest Software's identity and access management business unit, not a separate vendor.

Garden: Do I need Kubernetes?

Effectively yes. Garden is built around Kubernetes environments and offers little to teams on other runtimes.

One Identity: Does it include privileged access?

Safeguard provides it, but it is licensed separately from Identity Manager. Neither includes the other.

Garden: Does it replace my CI system?

No. It runs inside GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or similar and speeds up what those pipelines execute.

One Identity: Why choose this over SailPoint or Saviynt?

Almost always because of Active Directory depth via Active Roles or an appliance requirement for privileged sessions. For cloud-first estates the specialists are the stronger choice.

Garden: What is the actual saving?

It comes from skipping builds and tests whose inputs have not changed, so the benefit scales with how many services you have and how often only a few change.

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